A fish tape is used by electricians to pull wire through confined spaces. It can be used when a house is being rewired or for running wire through conduit. Fish tape is a long narrow metal strip which is wound on a spool. The spool completely encases the wire strip. Generally there is a handle which acts as a feeding mechanism which rides on the exterior of the spool.
The top of the spool has a circumferential opening which allows the metal strip to be pulled out. The metal strip also runs through an opening in the handle. Thus as the handle rotates around the spool, it either feeds or rewinds the metal strip.
The metal strip can be 100 to 200 feet in length. Thus, it is quite an effort to feed such a long length of metal strip through conduit and it is very time consuming to rewind the strip. There are several different power driven devices which feed and unwind fish tape. Motorized devices such as disclosed in Raney, U.S. Pat. No. 2,718,376 and Sweeney, U.S. Pat. No. 3,145,972 are basically dedicated devices which do not provide the flexibility of a hand operated fish line. Certain devices are designed to attach to fish lines such as those disclosed in Finkel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,413,808, Wilson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,917,362, and Nagy, U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,613. However these devices take a large amount of time to attach the fish tape to the power source and basically are unsuitable for every day use by an electrician.
The present invention is premised on the realization that a powered fish line can be provided wherein the power source is a separate power drill preferably a battery operated drill which can quickly attach and detach from the device. Further the present invention is premised on the realization that such a power driven fish line can also be used without a power drill, thus providing the electrician with the flexibility of feeding and retracting the fish line manually.
The fish line of the present invention includes a spool which holds the metal strip. The spool has an outer casing and an annular gear fixed to one side of the casing. The fish line further includes a handle which operates as a feed element through which the metal strip is fed and retracted. This feed element or handle rides on the exterior of the spool and includes a drive gear which engages the gear on the spool. Thus to operate the fish line one simply attaches an electric drill to the drive of the drive gear causing it to rotate thereby causing the spool to rotate relative to the handle, feeding or retracting the fish tape. If the electrician so chooses, he can use the fish tape by hand by simply grasping the handle and rotating the spool. This provides a very simple mechanism to feed and retract fish lines. It does not significantly increase the overall mass of the standard fish line and allows the electrician to either use the power source or operate it manually as the circumstances dictate.
The invention will be further appreciated in light of the following detailed description and drawings in which: